Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Irpen (talk | contribs) at 19:06, 28 October 2008 (A general comment by Irpen on the workshop proposal by Kirill Lokshin). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Question for Alex

The last time the two of us - you and me - interacted, it was in August, when you made your first and only edit (revert) to an article that Irpen was also reverting. We have not interacted for months (I can't recall any other interaction we had in 2008!). And now you are here, apparently having read this case in depth, posting proposals that sound very much like what Irpen would say... For the record, could you state how you got involved in this case, and whether the text of your proposals was discussed/suggested to you with anybody? PS. I have no problem with users asking others for input using off-wiki methods, but I believe it should be stated (ex. like I've clearly stated in this arbcom that I asked Lysy, Halibutt and Balcer for input).--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 14:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Waiver of the expectation of privacy in this matter

I would like to make a following statement. Upon an accidental discovery of Piotrus' black book several months ago I was shocked beyond what I can describe. Because I put Alex in a very small group of Wikipedian I respect most, I decided to share my frustration with him as what I have seen overwhelmed and distressed me too much. Thus, I communicated to Alex both my discovery and how I felt on this matter. Alex is free to share with the community what his take on this was back then. I just want to free him from any obligation he may feel towards me on preserving the privacy of our correspondence. I assert that there was no collusion of any sort and, of course, some are free to think what they want. However, I want to say that I have no qualms if Alex shares anything I wrote to him on any matter that directly or indirectly relates to Piotrus. --Irpen 22:02, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I have off-wiki contacts with a few wikipedians. Usually it is an administrative business with some users asking for administrative actions or having some private discussion about administrative matters, etc. I have participated in three Melbourne meetups and have some social interactions with people I met there. I have reasonable close relations with Irpen, we discuss a lot of things related to the real life as well as with wiki-related business. He indeed wanted me to help mediate the conflict over the Boleslaw_I's_intervention_in_the_Kievan_succession_crisis,_1018 between you (and your admirer) and Deacon. I am sorry but it was a conflict between an expert in the field and a devoted amateur. You were reverting version based on fundamental university text books to a version based on a newspaper. There was no POV conflict there just plain ownership of an article. I have put my thoughts on the talk page and of course reverted. The conflict eventually led to the present arbcom case. Maybe if I would interfere earlier the conflict could be sought by more gentle way. That is why I would not need anybody to point me out to this case, I was following it from the very beginning. When he found the resurrection of the black book Irpen complained to me first telling me quite bluntly that he would leave the project unless something is done. I have no further options than to recommend to give his grievances to the opened arbcom. Well, to be honest I feel like I have answer while I started my participation so late not to why I have started my participation at all since I was involved in or closely follow many of the editorial conflicts already mentioned here. And well, yes, my edits are mine unless I specifically said so, I have not got screenwriters yet. I am not sure I have provided all the info you wanted, so please continue asking if you need something else Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you. I have completely no problem with your communications. I wouldn't even have dared to ask about it and thus intervene in your privacy if not for the reason that your honest reply proves my point: we all use off wiki communication to discuss Misplaced Pages, and usually it's all in good faith and contributes, not detracts to the project. Please note that one could use bad faith to argue that your one comment and one revert in Boleslaw article can be seen as revert warring after off-wiki canvassing and that you were meatpuppeting for some cabal... I don't see it that way as I assume good faith - but there are arguments, right there on the evidence page, that twist innocent, good faithed edits and portray them just like that. If others did assume more good faith, there would be no need for this arbcom... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:25, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Just looking at the edit history and talk page, I can tell: this article was a subject of a long-standing content dispute involving many editors, two of them are Irpen and Piotrus. Then, all the sudden, Deacon joined the "battle" on August 23, just before opening of this case. Why he did it? That is an important question. Irpen, did you also share your frustration with Deacon?Biophys (talk) 23:44, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Piotrus, please think a little higher of our intelligence. This all is not about off-wiki communication per se. There is nothing wrong with off-wiki communication. It is only wrong to use it to call in reverts, to stack votes or to shop for blocks. This is my problem with your off-wiki communication, rather than its mere existence.

Biophys, I lost count on how many times just on the pages of this case you post completely nonsensical statements that contradicts some easily verifiable facts. That you rush into making rash statements instead of checking facts first does not help your statements to be taken seriously.

Now some facts: I completely withdrew from editing Misplaced Pages on July 8 (and Pitorus' black book was the main reason why I saw editing Misplaced Pages too stressful to continue it), briefly checked in on August 25 prompted by posting of an outrageous text presented as the nationalist conflict workgoup report, of which I was alerted by email, to post a dissenting opinion .

While at it I checked my watchlist. I noticed edits in the article in question (which I edited for a long time before) and a conflict between Deacon who rewrote it based on scholarly books written by top scholars in medieval Rus and Piotrus, who was acting as if he owns the article and was repeatedly making wholesale reverts of all Deacon's edits (including the ones he did not object to) . Noticing that Piotrus does not explain what's wrong with Deacon's version which is based on the most respected book published on Russian medieval history but simply reverts (and repeatedly) to a version based on a relatively obscure article in Rzeczpospolita (newspaper), I reverted Piotrus and posted to the at article's talk. Again, the war raged while I was on a wikibreak!

If you simply checked facts, you would spare us all some waste of time. As for what got Deacon to this article, I assure you that it was not me. I was not even online back then. If you followed Misplaced Pages coverage of medieval Rus, you would have noticed that Deacon wrote and edited a lot of articles in this field and I was not surprised to see him at this article. If you were, ask him what brought him to this article. I have nothing to do with this. --Irpen 05:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Irpen, thank you for criticism. I will change my evidence section to be taken more seriously.Biophys (talk) 14:54, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

You are welcome. All I want is that you get the facts straight first before making any statements, particularly at the ArbCom pages. You failed to verify some easily verifiable stuff, be it Relata Refero's being "called in" by me to the Holodomor denial article, my edits to Holodomor or, now, my having anything to do with the Deacon/Piotrus conflict regarding the Boleslaw intervention article that took place while I was not editing at all.

We all can make mistakes and miss something easily visible. But seeing this too often from you, several times already just within the few pages of this arbcom, it seems to me that you have a habit of rushing to judgment based on factually incorrect assumptions that are not that difficult to clear up on your own. In the future, please spend a little time verifying the facts before making wide-ranging accusatory statements. --Irpen 18:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Are we talking about this article?. Then you obviously edited it. Alex talked about this article.Biophys (talk) 18:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we are talking about this article. Yes, I edited it before the conflict between Piotrua and Deacon over its content. But you alleged that I have anything to do with Deacon's getting to that article while I was in fact not editing Misplaced Pages for over a month. Please reread what I said above again. Thank you. --Irpen 18:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I so far alleged nothing. I only asked a question: "Irpen, did you also share your frustration with Deacon?". You replied: "no". Thank you.Biophys (talk) 18:48, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

RM'd comment.

Piotrus' insistence that ethnicity if a fundamental quality of editors contributes to making Misplaced Pages an ethnic battleground

Actually, the "piece of the puzzle" that is missing is that Piotrus' whole argument here (as stated above) as well as his continued vilifying of me) all rests on a presumed agreement with his questionable thesis--that all editors on Misplaced Pages share his own admitted quality of having an ethnic based "POV." By his own admission, Piotrus insists that this is true for all editors. Like his ally Greg, he seems not to be able to grok the notion that an editor--regardless of ethnicity--can aim for fairness and balance to articles. Although Piotrus does not share his anti-semitic colleague Greg_park_avenue's pathological obsession with Jews, Piotrus is indeed, by his own admissions above, absolutely insistent that all editors share his admitted personal commitment to ethnicity being the primary motiavtion for all editors. This of course, is simply a not very sophisticated ploy in which Piotrus can paint those who disagree with him as "true believers" having an ethnic POV (e.g., his insistence that a "Jewish POV" is operative behind any edits that seek to remiove anti-Jewish biases). This rather unsophisticated argument of Piotrus' only works if one accepts it's premise--that all editors are motivated by an ethnic "POV." While I have noticed that some others share his view, I am confident that this is not a principle of this encyclopedia project. Boodlesthecat 14:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Removed, it was in the wrong place and out of template. Also, moderately inflammatory title. Refactor please.--Tznkai (talk) 15:33, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Attitude to problem resolution proposed principle

Starting section to discuss the Attitude to problem resolution principle to help real discussion to take place instead of the standard "votes" along the party lines. --Irpen 03:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the Molobo evidence

Since the cited evidence for Kirill Lokshin proposed finding of fact does not discriminate and instead links to all of Molobos diffs, including Molobos outrageous commentary, I provide them here grouped by date and with my commentary, since I believe that anyone who has actually reviewed them will have difficulty using them for the proposed FF, with the possible exception of the Friday 4th of January 2008 edits for which I already was placed on restriction, see this!

• : 1 January 2006. A question at the Holocaust article.
• ,: 2 January 2006 Discussion on the U.S. complicity in the 1944 - 1950 expulsions of 14 million Germans from Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe.
• ,,,: 4 January 2008, on Causes of world war II. The diffs were the result of baiting by Molobo both here and previously, e.g. the "collective guilt" sandbox stalking explained here and that same day Molobos writing unsupported assertions that the German public supported Nazism and Genocide. The edits this very bad day led to me being put on the Digwuren restriction by Ioeth.
• : 3 March 2008, Invasion of Poland, On Background and Polish politicians views. Based on this: "Davies, previously US ambassador to Moscow, is pretty pessimistic, but Beck sees things differently. The Germans should come! If the Wehrmacht attacks, Polish troops will be in Berlin within three weeks. Davies thought Beck was completely crazy. And he turned out to be right." Piotrus had chosen to delete the topic from the article page, and I was questioning his decision.
• : 4 april 2008, discussion with Szopen about Bloody Sunday, where he brings up the Racak incident.
• 10 April 2008, discussion with Szopen about Bloody Sunday at the Racak talk page
• : 10 July 2008, Someone labeling me as having a slanted viewpoint point on the subject (the article I had created).

The above diffs are linked to as a group, coupled with with Molobos commentary, by Kirill Lokshin, as evidence for his proposed FF and in turn his proposal for a 1 year ban of me. I'm particularly disappointed by Kirill Lokshins use of Molobos outrageous commentary, but also of Kirill Lokshins choice to include also for example the January 2006 diffs, and the 10 July 2008 one, as support of his proposed FF. My assumption when I made my reply to Molobos evidence, that people would take the time to review the presented diffs, may have been overly optimistic.

--Stor stark7 10:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Reply to Stor stark7 We use the workshop page to sort out the type of concerns that you are raising. Kirill's work is good and I usually support him but first I always make an independent review of the evidence and comments related to the evidence. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:31, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

A general comment by Irpen on the workshop proposal by Kirill Lokshin

Instead of, or rather in addition to, commenting on the individual findings and remedies in the workshop proposal by Kirill Lokshin (as of 28 October 2008), I would like to make some general comments on the proposal as a whole.

Background

First, we should draw some lessons from the past EE Arbcom decisions, such as Piotrus 1, Occupation of Latvia, Anonimu, Digwuren. The following comes to mind:

1. Other Arbcom decisions related to the EE conflicts were also authored by Kirill Lokshin.
2. It is difficult not to see that the past Arbcom decisions did not help improve the situation. I guess not everyone agrees on whether past ArbCom decisions merely failed to improve the situation or made it even worse. Personally, I think the latter is the case. But lack of an overall improvement from the past Arbcom's decisions is clear. This by itself is not necessarily a criticism of the decisions' author, see below.
3. Whether this sad situation arose from sloppy ArbCom decisions instead of more deliberate ones, and whether other decisions might have improved the situation is also a matter of opinion. Possibly, the problem is more in the utmost difficulty to find a solution that may actually work. Maybe this is even (almost) impossible and no one (including the Arbcom) can be faulted for failing to do the impossible. But it is important to keep in mind what was tried and what did not work before deciding what to do.

So, let's look at what was tried and failed in the past decisions when we are trying to avoid the past mistakes.

Mess in the case' pages

First, all of the past arbitrations, and especially Digwuren, were derailed by the inappropriate actions of some of the participants in the evidence and workshop pages. When anything useful is buried in nonsense and noise, it is extremely difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. The amount of nonsense currently in these evidence and workshop pages (see ) is now approaching the signal to noise ratio in the pages of the Digwuren's case. There is at last a first slight acknowledgment of the problem in one of the findings proposed by KL. A good first step but clearly insufficient.

I have asked the arbitrators and clerks, in general, to do something about this signal to noise ratio, both now and during the Digwuren's case. So far, there has been no remedy. The mere FoF acknowledging the problem is clearly an inadequate solution.

1. Occasional mistakes may be forgiven but editors who post tons of outrageous rants to the ArbCom pages should be sanctioned and restricted to the talk pages.
2. The low quality of the evidence and workshopping needs to be identified by the arbs, and preferably removed or at least <small>smallfonted</small>. If this includes some of what I wrote, I will accept that. But merely saying that "there is a problem" is inadequate. The problem has to be addressed, not just acknowledged.

Once the pages are cleaned up and become useful again, we would have a better chance to get something out of this case that may actually work. While wild allegations about the Wikipedians being connected with KGB or its successor agencies and other egregious rants pollute these pages, they will remain hardly useful.

Without useful input from the editors intimately familiar with the case, arbitrators, who cannot be a priori familiar with all significant details, are less likely to produce the remedies that would help.

"Editor Bubba edit-warred"

"Editor Bubba edit-warred " is a finding Kirill posted with respect to several of this case's participants . However, links to reverts by Bubba (either few or many) are clearly an inadequate justification to say that Bubba (be it Piotrus, Deacon, myself, Relata Refero, Alden Jones or anyone else) "edit warred" because an edit war is defined not by a number of reverts alone but by a lot of things.

The most crucial characteristic of an edit war is the presence or absence of discussion. Also, it may be worthwhile to look what these reverts actually are. I am not talking about making an editorial judgment about content, something that ArbCom can't do, when the content being reverted is even semi-reasonable. However, many articles are being attacked by outrageous and dedicated SPA POV pushers. Such accounts ignore talk pages (or troll at the talk pages) and persist with the same edits for weeks or even months. And sometimes their edits are complete and utter nonsense. Also, there is a clear difference between just a revert and a revert accompanied by a patient talk page explanation. So, the definition of an edit war is by no means simplistic and certainly cannot be reduced to a simple number of reverts.

We have to ask ourselves more than whether a person has reverted. Among the questions we have to apply are:

• Does the editor discuss only when he runs out of reverts?
• Does it seem that he discusses in good faith?
• What content was reverted?

These questions need to be answered before finding someone guilty of "edit warring".

Even 3RR is by no means a definition of edit-warring. 3RR is simply a policy aimed at the edit warring reduction. A two per day reverter may be an edit warrior and 4 reverts may actually not be an edit war. Thus, as I am sure Kirill and the other arbitrators would agree, the definition of an edit war is by no means as simple and simplistic as the number of reverts and KL's proposal does not address this yet.

Treating symptoms

Lacking insightful specifics in the PP and FoF sections on what principles (policies and user conduct) are being violated and how, this proposal inevitably turns to unsubtle remedies. This is the approach that has already brought us disaster from the Digwuren case, where overly harsh and blind bans and loaded gun proposals ("general" or "discretionary sanctions") led to more disruption rather than less. Surely, in this case a hang-them-all approach should not be tried again, and get expanded to include all the witnesses, too.

The logic of these decisions seems to have been as follows: "this is all a huge mess and we don't like the messes" and "let's just sweep this unseemly mess with a huge broom" or, as KL called it himself, "Get the big hammer out".

An outright ban of any party to this arbitration except Alden Jones, whose entire activity consisted of reverting various articles to Piotrus and running a huge sock farm , is outrageously excessive. No matter how tempting it seems to again just "Get the big hammer out, then", an abritrator needs to patiently sift through diffs, notice the details, notice the subtleties and propose precise rather than crude solutions

The same applies to the remedies that call for Piotrus and myself to stay away from each other and (amazingly) even "each others' " articles despite our interests lie in the same set of topics. It is also non-workable for the host of other reasons, some already pointed out at the workshop. But the main problem with this approach is that it is written as if this ArbCom is about a personal conflict between Piotrus and myself. It is not! ArbCom is about conduct and policy violations.

I don't have a personal problem with Piotrus. I outlined in my evidence, what problems in his conduct seem to me an obstacle (not the only obstacle of course) for this sector of Misplaced Pages to function reasonably. Piotrus asserts complete innocence of any wrong doing and claims that my own conduct violates policy and is an obstacle. He also blames others, and other editors have made their own claims and assertions. The arbitrators have to decide based on the evidence presented here (and to be able to do it they better clean it up first) what the policy violations were. And they have to be as specific as possible when doing so.

Yes, this requires a huge amount of work on the arbitrators' part by sifting through evidence, separating the wheat from the chaff in it, analyzing what was tried, whether it succeeded and if not, why. This is much more difficult than to just acknowledge that "it's a mess" and try to get rid of it by "getting a big hammer out". But I hope the editors who ran for the spot at the Arbitration Committee did not hope that the problems they would have to deal with would be possible to solve without a lot of effort. --Irpen 19:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)